What I've learned eating a plant based/vegan diet

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Hey Steemians! It's almost been 3 years since I started eating a fully vegan diet, and since then I've learned a lot. Not only about food, but about myself. On this post, I want to share with you my experiences to hopefully help others who are discovering or eating a plant based diet!

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So to start, I've listed these aspects as bullet points, and will touch on each one in greater detail throughout this post :)

• My emotions, intuition, and inner voice are heightened when not suppressed by animal products.
• We are told we need more protein than we truly do. Protein is a non-issue as long as I get enough total calories.
• Carbohydrates are my friend, and are super efficient for my body.
• I've tried so many new foods, and realized there is a seemingly endless amount of new foods and meal combinations to experience.
• My digestion is much better, and my body feels overall lighter.
• Eating healthy meals is easy once you find your staples, and cooking my own meals is the easiest way to eat healthy.

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My Story

To give you a better understanding of my journey, I grew up eating the standard American diet, and regularly ate chicken, cheese, pepperoni, milk, eggs, and bacon, although I was never really a big fan of red meat or seafood.

As I grew older into my twenties, I started listening to conventional fitness "wisdom" and focused on increasing my protein intake to "get into shape". Through this process I began consuming protein bars and shakes filled with milk, as well as an increased amount of chicken in order to reach my "protein requirement".

Eventually I found the low-carb diet, and began eating pretty much nothing but animal products. I was eating bacon, burgers, and cheese all day everyday, but because I was losing bodyfat due to ketogenesis, I thought I was in the best shape of my life. Turns out I was unaware of the issues of what was going on inside my body, and a few years later I decided to do a 7 day cleanse with my brother and a friend of mine.

What happened next changed everything for me.

This 7 day cleanse consisted of only eating fruits and vegetables. We got the idea of doing it from hearing about people who only eat fruit, so we decided hey let's try something similar for a week. We ate mostly apples and bananas during the day, and at night cooked a veggie stir fry.

By the end of the week, we all lost a lot of excess fat and water weight, and I began feeling so much lighter in my body. I remember being outside on our back deck and feeling the sunlight hit my skin and thinking, "I AM the sunlight!" Haha it was intense.

Fast forward two months later when our boss took us out to eat, and I got a burger and fries. Afterwards I felt sick to my stomach and my brother and I both decided to become vegetarian. It was so much pain associated with that burger compared to the light and free feeling we had during our cleanse, and we both knew it was time to make a huge change.

Two years later, I met my girlfriend who brought the idea of veganism into my life. I had been vegetarian for two years prior, but didn't ever think about how cheese and milk are still the same animal proteins and fats that are in meat. It took about 1 second for me to realize I needed to become vegan if I wanted to maximize my health and vitality.

This is where it got hard. I was constantly removing foods from my diet because they had dairy or eggs in them, and I didn't have many options to replace them with. The first 6 months was extremely challenging, as I definitely wasn't getting enough nutrients because I wasn't eating enough.

However, this process led me to try a ton of new foods! As I had been a picky eater before, my palette was pretty much just used to pizza, macaroni and cheese, chicken tenders, and pb&j sandwiches. This process opened me up to try new foods such as avocados, artichokes, tempeh, beans, nutritional yeast, kale, and more!

What I found is that my body started craving these natural foods, partly because I felt so light and comfortable digesting them. It was all starting to make sense as I could feel these foods were integrating with my body.

As time went on, I began developing my own staple meals and finding plant based snacks that resonated with my body (and tastebuds). I've increased my awareness of many different types of foods and also how my body responds to them, which has led me here to this post to share my experiences!

Below I'll mention specific aspects of my experience eating plant based, as I believe this is truly the healthiest way to eat and would love to help others who are interested in plant based nutrition.

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Emotions, Intuition, and Inner Voice

I've experienced so much growth in the last few years, and I attribute it to following my intuition and taking action on what's authentic to me. I've noticed that I have become extremely sensitive to my own feelings and thoughts after removing animal products from my diet, which shows me how they have acted as an energetic filter throughout most of my life. I believe this because animals raised for food suffer throughout their lives, and that energy is found in their flesh and byproducts and passed onto us. By removing this energetic suffering, fear, and pain from my diet, I am no longer transferring them into my body and am allowing myself to sit with my own true emotions and feelings.

I Easily Get Enough Protein

The whole idea that we need sooo much protein is a marketing ploy to sell more animals. After not worrying about the amount of protein I've been getting, I still have the energy to go to the gym and build muscle. All without having to cram chicken breasts and protein shakes down my throat. There is so much evidence out there now that eating a plant based diet sufficient in calories will provide us with all the protein we need. If we think about it, cows and chickens get all of their protein from plants, so why not just go to the source ourselves?

Carbohydrates Are My Friends

I used to believe carbs were bad for me, that they'd make me fat and that I should restrict them. Well turns out this isn't true at all! We store carbohydrates in our muscles and liver as glycogen, and by living a normal active lifestyle we burn this sugar extremely well, so eating more carbohydrates allows us to just refuel our glycogen stores. One might conclude that this myth was created by the animal agriculture industry...

So Many New Foods

Since becoming vegan I have tried so many new foods that I didn't even know existed. I've had cheese made from cashews and nutritional yeast. Tempeh made from fermented black beans. And even fungus tacos that were amazing. Expanding my palette and the types of food I've tried has truly enhanced my life and well being, and creates a ton of variety when I go out to eat, (gotta go to the right places though!)

Improved Digestion

Meat takes a lot of energy to break down and digest, and by switching to plant foods my body can more easily digest my meals. I no longer go through stomach pain or feelings of food sitting in my stomach for hours, but instead feel light and free after a meal.

Finding Diet Staples Is Key To Success

After experimenting with many foods, I've eventually found some staples for my lunch, dinner and snacks. I love cooking a stir fry with pinto beans, tomatoes and onions for lunch, and making sweet potato wedges and broccoli for dinner. This has made my life so easy because I finally have consistent meals that are easy to make and are easy to digest.

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My experience with plant based foods has totally increased my well being, and it is my hope that you'll find some value in this post and try some new foods today :) If you have any questions or want to talk about plant based diets, let me know!

Much love!
Bryan Divisions